Are you environmentally friendly? Are you practicing sustainable living? We all hear these questions all the time, even in email signatures, but how bad is print?

The printing industry is not always viewed as environmentally friendly - we understand that. But what we want everyone to know is that printing and paper have their place and are still effective ways to communicate.

At Allied, paper is an important part of our fulfillment outsourcing and marketing and sales support solutions as well as recycling and being responsible. Furthermore, we want to make sure that people have all the facts about print and our industry.

Please, click here to read an article regarding the print industry and how paper has gotten a bad rap these days.

Another new year....What cliche shall I use? Perhaps a comment about how fast the years go by or maybe a list of new years resolutions that will be broken by February?

Instead, I believe the best course of action is to stick with something that has a history of success... so I am pleased to announce that The Allied Group will continue to innovate and be a thought-leader in our market space for 2012.

We have always tried to differentiate ourselves from the “traditional business model”. So... in that same spirit, I would like to introduce two new coming attractions in 2012 that add to our diverse line of products and services:

First: we are going to offer a completely integrated, multi-channel marketing solution which expands our value equation to include output and measurement of social media and mobile technology.

Second: we are launching a digital asset management solution which will help our clients with the all-important task of “protecting your brand”.

It seems like everyone is referring to and talking about this "new normal."

Many people are asking - what is it? The best I can offer is to share how this term applies to The Allied Group. At Allied, our intention is to make the "new normal” an enhancement over the "old normal." We want to provide more products and services for you, our client…and we want to make them even more integrated and more efficient.

For example, if we have been providing marketing strategy services for you, we want to also offer efficient "backroom" full service fulfillment capabilities to fully integrate your workflow from the very beginning to final delivery. And vice versa…if we currently help you with warehousing and mailing, we welcome the opportunity to assist in the strategic marketing effort of your organization. In general, we recognize that the “new normal” for most of our clients means a heavy workload and having to do more with less.

Our solution is to be a single, added-value resource that can solve more challenges than ever before in a very coordinated way.

Seeing as we are a New England marketing and full service fulfillment firm I like to see what is happening all over the area. Every year the Boston Business Journal releases a list of Boston based institutions that have the best reputations. The Boston Red Sox, Legal Sea Foods, and Mass General Hospital were among the most renowned in Boston.

"Reputation is the primary concern for most businesses. In this era of citizen journalism and instantaneous information, companies know that while the slightest misstep might not immediately land them on the front page, it certainly could ignite a firestorm of Tweets and blog posts," Business Journal Publisher Christopher McIntosh said. "As our communications platforms continue to evolve, so must our understanding of the value of a good reputation. These 30 companies, CEOs and brands epitomize 'Most Admired' throughout Boston’s business community. The BBJ is proud to recognize them."

Some of the companies listed are Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Dunkin' Brands, Harvard University, and Zipcar. A special pull-out feature will be released in the BBJ on March 18.

At The Allied Group we provide our customers with business development services and we want to congratulate our clients that made the list as well as all the companies that made top honors.

As we all know, Rhode Island has been hard hit by the economy and if that weren't enough, last years floods didn't help our efforts at all. Providence Business News reports that Rhode Island’s economy resumed its expansion in December, URI's economist Leonard Lardaro said as his economic index climbed to match its highest level of 2010 - great news.

"Lardaro’s Current Conditions Index rose to 58 in December, up from 50 in November and 42 in October. The index last peaked at 58 between June and September. December’s 58 reading was a significantly higher than the 33 recording a year earlier. Lardaro said seven of the 12 indicators improved compared with December 2009, including single-family house permits, retail sales, total manufacturing hours, manufacturing wage, unemployment rate and unemployment benefit exhaustion."

More great news for this state is that Providence has been listed as one of seven cities that has caught "start up" fever. Many companies are starting out in this state and much of that can be credited to Rhode Island School of Design’s graphic-design program and Brown’s computer-science department. Jack Templin is featured in the February DETAILS issue.

As a marketing strategy services and fulfillment outsourcing firm based in Rhode Island, this all brings a smile to our faces. Things are looking up and that's a great way to start 2011.

There was important news released yesterday buy the U.S. Government Printing Office and it was pretty positive considering the state of our economy. The GPO has yet again reported another year with positive earnings; that's seven years in a row with positive earnings. The financials show GPO completed the year with a net operating income of $7.9 million on total revenues of $928 million.

The GPO is the federal government’s primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging,producing, providing, authenticating, and preserving published U.S. government information in all its forms.

"As GPO begins to celebrate our 150th anniversary, I am proud to announce we have completed a seventh consecutive year of positive results due to the hard work and dedication of our employees," said Public Printer Bob Tapella. "GPO has re-engineered itself many times since 1861 to remain relevant and viable for the future. It is through the efforts of our family of employees that GPO has transformed itself into a 21st century printing, digital media and secure credentialing facility."

This is great news for the print and full service fulfillment industries. The economy has taken it's toll on many organizations but this seems so be a step in the right direction.

Here at The Allied Group we know how important effective marketing collateral can be to our clients so it was interesting when I came across a recent survey published by a west coast media firm.

Eccolo Media has been conducting an annual survey of U.S. business technology purchasers to better understand how they perceive and use marketing collateral in the sales cycle. The 2010 survey was recently completed and included responses from senior business executives as well as managers and specialists. While the survey was limited to technology buyers, the findings definitely provide valuable insights into the practices of buyers who purchase complex products and services, regardless of what they may be.

The findings are intriguing...

White papers seem to have the greatest influence on purchasing decisions among executives. White papers took the top spot with 39% of buyers stating they were the most influential of marketing collateral.

Case studies, brochures, and white papers are still the most frequently used types of marketing collateral with 83% of respondents saying they had used brochures, 76% using white papers, and 67% using case studies within the past six months to evaluate vendors.

The most important place for marketing collateral is the company website. Potential buyers are going directly to the company website to find valuable information on products and services.

These marketing materials are being gathered early in the buying process. Most potential buyers are gathering marketing collateral before they even initiate or take calls from vendors.

The bottom line is that marketing material is still very important to potential buyers as well as to your marketing communication strategies. Please contact us if you would like to discuss our corporate marketing services and how they may fit into your lead generation methods.